Keyboard Kimura: A Night at Battlefield Fight League

E. Spencer Kyte offers up his takeaways and observations from the Battlefield Fight League event at the Hard Rock Casino in Coquitlam on Saturday night.

There is something impressive about a couple hundred people sounding like a couple thousand. It’s a different kind of roar, a different kind of audible passion as the sound of friends, family and teammates rallying behind a fighter echoes throughout the far less cavernous venues that play host to regional shows.

Saturday night, the Molson Theatre at Coquitlam’s Hard Rock Casino was the location of such an event and the corresponding ovations as 11 fights hit the cage for Battlefield Fight Night 46, showcasing an abundance of talent from across the Lower Mainland.

It was the type of event there needs to be more of in this country – a show featuring predominantly amateur bouts capped by a couple quality professional scraps featuring competitors in the formative stages of their careers.

Mixed martial arts is one of those sports where practical experience is a twin-pronged necessity, serving as both a chance to put lessons learned in the gym into practice and test whether crossing the threshold into the cage in actually something you want to do with any kind of regularity. Some competitors look right at home, comfortable from the outset and keen on trading blows, while others aren’t quite as sure.

Both archetypes were present Saturday at the Hard Rock, though to the credit of the competitors that made the walk, the majority excitedly engaged in the physical chess matches that made up the night’s lineup.

And there were a few competitors who showed promise.

When you sit close at regional MMA events, your stuff might get covered in blood.E. Spencer Kyte / Keyboard Kimura

Amateurs Brandon Fratino and David Chen both shone, catching quick, early submissions to score victories, while Jayden Martin closed out the amateur action with a dominant second-round stoppage win over Keanan Keller to claim the Battlefield Fight League amateur welterweight title, a belt that has been held by a number of the top names to compete in the organization, including former UFC fighter Matt Dwyer.

On the professional side, former welterweight champ Curtis Harriot delivered the most impressive finish of the night, knocking out Mike Dubois with a vicious slam just before the midway point of the opening round; his third such victory inside the Battlefield cage to date.

In the main event, Squamish’s Cole Smith turned in a dominant effort to win the pro bantamweight title, bloodying Jamie Siraj early with a series of crisp punches and sharp elbows. After getting the defending champion to tap out to a rear naked choke two-minutes into the fourth, an elated Smith did his best Jose Aldo impression, scaling the cage wall and darting into the audience for a round of hugs and high fives from the energized audience, which was made up of numerous “Cole Train” supporters.

The event was a four-hours-and-change representation of what the UFC tries to capture every time it brings an event north of the border and loads it with Canadian talent – a non-stop symphony of cheers and encouragement for competitors representing various gyms and communities from across the region.

For the most part, it doesn’t work on the UFC level because Canadian sports fans are raised on regional support more than national pride (save for the Olympics and major hockey competitions), so a fighter from Montreal isn’t going to receive the same kind of ovation as BFL product Jeremy Kennedy did when he opened the last UFC show at Rogers Arena at the end of August.

But on the regional level, where events are built out of gyms in the area and cozy venues are packed with sections of partisan supporters, the cheering is loud and consistent, making smaller shows feel special and giving the UFC hopefuls and MMA hobbyists that fill out the fight card an extra shot of adrenaline and energy as they step into the cage to test their skills and chase their dreams.

E. Spencer Kyte covers MMA for The Province. Follow him on social media: @spencerkyte.

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